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Teacher Cannot Be Sued For Denying Creationism
gzipped_tar writes "A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that a public high school teacher in Mission Viejo, California may not be sued for making hostile remarks about religion in his classroom. The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a student charging that the teacher's hostile remarks about creationism and religious faith violated a First Amendment mandate that the government remain neutral in matters of religion. A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the lawsuit must be thrown out of court because the teacher was entitled to immunity."
So if a teacher came out in favor of creationism, a radical form, let's say one that proclaimed blacks, asians, and all other non-whites as descendants of evil evil Cain, would it be possible to sue that teacher?
Clearly and obviously Adam and Eve never existed and this should be taught to any young person as truth is always preferable to falsehoods, but what about someone promoting a falsehood?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
One point for Common Sense.
That the US constitution is a great boon to the country, yet at the same time being a huge albatross around its neck. FFS suing someone because they expressed an opinion in an arena where they may/may not be allowed to have an opinion, instead of growing a pair, sucking it up and realizing that not everyone agrees with you. And yes I am aware of the protections that the constitution grants, but in this case a lawsuit seems overkill.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Unless it is a private religious school, religion should not be being mentioned in a classroom by a teacher (with exceptions for history class facts).
Someone says something pro-religion the left gets up in arms! Someone says something anti-religious and the right gets up in arms!
I do not pay (taxes) teachers to teach my kids their personal beliefs, even if those beliefs are the same as mine, that's still not their job. This just opens the door for pro-religious teachers to start denouncing atheism or other denominations. Just shut up about religion in school altogether please, either for or against, and start teaching facts and critical thinking skills.
Sheesh
But whether he agrees with his students beliefs or not, he should at least be respectful. As much as I hate the idea of creationism being taught in schools, I think this douche bag should be fired. But hey, it is the 9th circuit they usually don't have a fucking clue anyways let alone being able to reliably and consistently interpret written laws.
That pesky Constitution really mucks up frivolous litigation sometimes
News for nerds? No. More like news to see how many flaming posts they can get. Where is the flaimbait button for the OP.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a school is not a government institution, and the teacher is not a government employee, is he? So he can say whatever he wishes about religion, and still not invoke the "Church and State, separate!"-clause.
In Hungary, there's something called the National Curriculum, but that only specifies the rough topics and lays out a track to follow to the end of high school. Inside those topics, the teachers are free to subdivide their classes, and teach whatever they wish, since they aren't government employees (only public servants), and although the schools are government/municipality-funded, they are not government institutions.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
TFA includes a shortened transcript of the teacher's comments, and it doesn't sound to me like he was criticizing religion per se. Rather, he was criticizing attempts by people to pose religion as science (such as intelligent design), by saying that the "logic" used to argue in favor of creationism is fundamentally flawed and nonscientific. And especially if intelligent design advocates continue to insist that their ideas be taught as science in a science classroom, then such criticisms should certainly be fair game in science classrooms.
At least from the transcript, it didn't seem like he was directly criticizing those who nevertheless believe in a creator as a matter of faith and not of science.
I am a lawyer, and about a third of my cases are representing state employees, and about a third of those involve cases with a "clearly established" defense, though I practice mostly in the Fourth Circuit, not the Ninth.
The "clearly established" standard is a way for courts to keep these kinds of suits from dinging innocent state employees. Basically, not only does the employee have to violate someone's right, but it has to have been pretty much unreasonable for the employee to think ze wasn't violating that right. Here, in fact, the panel didn't even hold that the kid had a right not to have this stuff said to him. So this case won't be precedent for future cases to reach back and say, "Well, as of the time the Corbett opinion was issued, the right not to have a teacher make fun of your religious beliefs was clearly established."
There are several other possible doctrines for protecting an employee in such a situation, and they're all salutary.
Why is it that teaching against religion is protected speech, but if the teacher were to favor religion then that is not protected?
The article says the judges are giving the teacher immunity because there's no current clear precedent in law for this being unconstitutional, so the teacher wouldn't have known his comments might be unconstitutional.
The San Francisco-based appeals court said the teacher was entitled to immunity because it was not clearly established in the law that a teacher’s expression of hostility to certain religious beliefs in a public school classroom would violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
They never ruled on whether his comments were actually unconstitutional or not. Just that there wasn't fair warning that it might not be. Rather than let it be, why aren't they using this case to make that precedent? Or am I missing something?
It's one thing to hold views on religion, or lack thereof.
It's quite another to use your position as a government agent to provide yourself with a soapbox, period.
Let alone to an audience of the very young, impressionable minds we are trusting the government to educate in the absence of their parents. In loco parentis.
This teacher was out of line for criticizing religion, and would have been just as out of line promoting it.
Bottom line is that when she is on duty as a teacher and the meter is running for the taxpayers, she is acting on behalf of the government and as such is obliged to restrain herself accordingly.
Interesting quote from TFA:
In the 1994 case, the Ninth Circuit ruled that religious neutrality required that the biology teacher’s positive views of religious ideas must be excluded from public school instruction. But in 2011, a different panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that the history teacher’s hostile views of religion and faith must be permitted to protect the “robust exchange of ideas in education.”
It looks like the Ninth Circuit is hostile to religion and faith. They clearly didn't get that from the First Amendment.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Seems to me, from the brief notes in TFA, that the judge suggested it was ok to say that creationists were completely failing to follow scientific principles in claiming their position was correct. The teacher didn't directly attack religion, just the absurd methodology of the religious folks in this case.
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f we fail to care for them appropriately, they will be gone, leaving us
with....., whatever this anti-life place has become?
disarm. read the teepeeleaks etchings. the rehearsal is over.
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I'm somewhat torn between two viewpoints; help me out here. Side 1: The immunity provided in precedent by this ruling applies to all teachers, all subjects, and all opinions. This implies that Texas schools, where classes are taught both the popular scientific opinion and the popular Judeo-Christian origin myth, are protected - and to revel in this court ruling while speaking out against the inclusion of religious mythos would be contradictory. (i.e. "It's good when courts protect my opinion, but screw other opinions.") Side 2: The scientific method doesn't provide things 'as is' in any case. It is a method of observation, and the data can be - and is - used to argue differing opinions. (Not to mention arguments about observational accuracy, testing method bias, differing results, etc.) This separates the origin myths from the current scientific opinion categorically, and the same protections don't apply to both. (i.e. "I observed/tested/proved this, it doesn't go in the same box as your faith.") The argument just keeps going back and forth in my head. I could use some input.
As a teacher, you shouldn't insult your student's views in front of class, no matter the subject. On the flipside, if you do it's nonsense that it should bring a lawsuit.
or also about sects like Scientology?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If only.
These days schools teach children to be bricks in the wall, not critical thinkers capable of making their own educated judgments.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
The fact that there may not have been a previous decision to warn the teacher that this was unacceptable behavior doesn't mean that htis behavior was acceptable, and the court shouldn't have ducked the issue in this way. Moreover, when the issue has been teacher who were presenting their religious views rather than their atheistic views, the 9th circuit has not ducked the issue in this way. The "giant spaghetti monster" line that the teacher used is not a neutral symbol, but a deliberate and overt attack on Christian belief. He should not be allowed to present such material in a classroom context if a Christian creationist is not allowed to present their beliefs in a classroom context.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a student charging that the teacherâ(TM)s hostile remarks about creationism and religious faith violated a First Amendment mandate that the government remain neutral in matters of religion.
1. Yes, if the school is public then the salary of the teacher is paid from taxes, however it's not necessary that the taxes are Federal in nature, though of-course States cannot dismiss parts of US Constitution as it stands (but they can and need to challenge the federal government that it is not following the US Constitution, but that's a different topic).
2. No, even if the teacher was clearly a government representative, his remarks do not violate anything in the Constitution. His remarks are in fact his own opinion and are also free speech and thus government cannot prevent the teacher from expressing his views, which is his right.
3. If the teacher used his attitude towards the religions to discriminate against people, and by discriminate I mean apply government power against them in any way based on their religious associations, then it would have been a violation.
The appeals court side-stepped the question of whether Dr. Corbettâ(TM)s comment on creationism and other derogatory remarks about religious faith were unconstitutional.
They should not have sidestepped it, seems like the judge didn't want to pass any real ruling here, he didn't want to be on record. Shows how weak and pathetic the justice system has become.
Instead, the panel concluded that since Corbett was entitled to qualified immunity it was not necessary for the appeals court to determine whether his comments actually violated the Constitution.
What is this magic immunity? Is it the right to free speech, because that's the only real immunity.
--
Everybody is wrong in this case, the teacher shouldn't be trolling his obviously religious students, the students shouldn't be starting these frivolous lawsuits and the judge should grow a pair.
You can't handle the truth.
Ugh. Sentences and words. Mostly the domain of authors and forum posters.
See I'm smart enough to give a reverse definition too. Of course it contributes absolutely nothing to the discussion since anyone who was interested already knew that. But like I said I'm smart so look at how clever I am while I pat myself on the back for knowing these things.
If the student has any bone in his body then he should file a second lawsuit against the goverment based on the same supposed violation against this First Amendment mandate that the government remain neutral in matters of religion. But this time for printing 'In god We Trust" on every dollar bill.
Separation of Church and State was added to prevent the government from telling you what to believe. This has expanded to the point where a teacher can't express their own religious views because that would be teaching religion... and if the teacher is paid by the government...
But now it's OK to tell people what NOT to believe when it comes to religion? The state should not be trying to sway people towards or away from any religion period. It should be up to individual, and they shouldn't be ridiculed or pressured by a state official to pick something else.
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
Sorry, I am not an American, but if there is a First Amendment mandate that the government must remain neutral in matters of religion, why is "in God we Trust" printed on the money?
Indeed. Here's the transcript for reference for people who didn't RTFA:
He gets bonus points from me for including the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster.
So is creationism science, or is it religion?
I thought that creationists argued that their ideas were "scientific" or was that the intelligent designers?
Anyway, either it's a religion, the basis for the creationists' case here, and would therefore have no place in a proper education system to begin with,
or creationism is a science, giving it a place in the education system but allowing teacher to have & express a negative opinion about it.
This seems the kind of circular reasoning we've come to expect from creationists and intteligent design proponents, in yet another interesting new form.
That's hard to answer using logic but what about the people who have an epiphany? The answer is revealed to them. They, all of a sudden, just know. Their problem they have with everyone else is the same one you would experience trying to explain red to a tribe of color blind people.
The unanswered question is whether critical thinking skills are appropriate for evaluating something like religion or art. The judges, who make their living using their critical thinking skills, may not even have considered that possibility.
Yes, I realize that people use their critical thinking skills to create and evaluate art and music. The result seems to have been some pretty darn inaccessible stuff like Arnold Schoenberg's twelve tone music. Religion and art are probably best dealt with by the right brain and less well understood by the left brain.
As a Christian I believe God originally created life on earth. Its also obvious to me that he created and uses Evolution to maintain and improve it.
Look guys, the point isn't whether teachers are liable for teaching perceived truth, i.e. stating "God does not exist" vs. "God does exist". The First Amendment doesn't say government is permitted to take a side on religious issues when it aligns itself with perceived truth (at one time perceived truth was "God exists", remember?) the First Amendment is that government must have no opinion whatsoever.
And for those of you who think this is a science vs. religious issue, bear in mind that religion is outside the scope of science. No hypothesis can be tested that asserts "Adam and Eve were not created by God in six days". No way you can test that. No scientific method can verify it. Thus, any claim to that, has nothing to do with science. Sure, you can argue on the side of "default belief" and "apparent evolution" and what-not, but those are not experiments, those are not scientifically rigorous arguments, they are just philosophical asides. Stating "God does not exist" is not an exercise in science, it is in fact an exercise in religious discourse.
To almost everyone who has posted, the court did not rule on the constitutional issue. They dismissed the suit because there was no grounds in law to sue the INDIVIDUAL teacher. The law, from what I understand, granted the teacher immunity from being sued. Meanwhile there was a post further up which explains this in much more detail.
She works for the government. She should neither disparage nor encourage religious viewpoints. Preferably, she should not discuss the matter of religion at all. As for creationism, it's not science (i.e. not a falsifiable theory backed by evidence) and has no place in a public classroom. The right answer is, "don't discuss it there."
Mythic explanations for creation are a dime a dozen and popular ones can be heard every Sunday in the USA. Virtually all children are exposed to them. Some will recover. Others not.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Does this mean that you would support a teacher with a belief in creationism teaching his opinion in a public school? I have my doubts.
I've never actually heard one of those neuter pronouns used in real speech. I've seen them in "Hey, somebody should invent a neuter pronoun" articles, but never in real life.
I'd love to see it catch on in the legal community. Lawyers are used to stilted language aimed at increasing precision. (Whether they really succeed or not is a different question.) That would be a good place to introduce an awkward new word that we really need.
No, what matters is who has the power to direct teachers in the classroom. And if you had cited the relevant authority covered in the fine article, it would have looked something like this, "The courts in that case upheld a school district directive that the biology teacher must not teach creationism in science class."
The question before that court was whether the classroom instructor had the authority to overrule the authority of the elected body responsible for setting policy. Only in matters where you can exercise free will is that option is available. That's why, in a democratic capitalistic republic, you have to pray to God for that privilege.
I believe that is true even in Texas... unless you want to ecology. Then you don't have a prayer.
It's not the Constitution; it's the teacher's right to immunity.
Why is it that teaching against religion is protected speech, but if the teacher were to favor religion then that is not protected?
Addressing the second part of your query first: to favor one religion is implicitly or explicitly to denigrate other religions and the lack of a religion, and thus would constitute a form of slander. It would also contravene (in any state-supported environment in the US) the Establishment clause of the first amendment to the US constitution. Favoring creationist viewpoints would be to favor a very narrow selection of religions, and to impugn others - some religions are anti-creatonist by their own dogma.
As to the first part of your query: that is not what the court decided. The teacher was not teaching against religion per se, but against the promulgation of self-evident nonsense masquerading as science and supporting a particular religious viewpoint. He apparently described creationism as "superstitious nonsense", which is neither attacking religion nor stating an untruth (incidentally, truth is an absolute defence against slander in the US). Here is a short summary of scientific viewpoints on various creationist arguments.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Religion makes people dangerous. Faith makes people willing to fly planes into buildings and murder thousands of innocent civilians at the behest of evil humans that set themselves up as the voice of god. Faith makes people blow up clinics. It makes people seek to deny fundamental human rights from their neighbors (like the right to love and marry who one chooses).
Believing in God would be fine if it didn't include believing in whatever evil things some voice-of-god humans have to say.
I do believe the point of a school is to teach math, science, english, reading, writing, perhaps gym class and foreign languages.
The rest is up to the parents, friends, and if they feel the need, sunday school or saturday synagog.
If Science scares religious people that much, perhaps they should conjure up a spell or ask their god to do something about it.
And until the spell works or "god" responds to their wishes... I mean prayers, you should just stick to what people have been doing for decades.
When god versus god the undoing of man. I think this is the sort of thing Dave was thinking about when he wrote those lyrics. Not just creationism vs reality (science) but all religeons in general. A friend of mine is commonly quoted as saying" if we could just get all the leaders of countries that hate the USA together and have a big old pork roast, drink some good beer and fine bourbon we could get to work on fixing our problems." It's true. You can't be mad at anyone after you stuffed your face with a bunch of pig and ya got a beer buzz goin on. Of course that'll never happen but it's nice to dream.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
As long as it's factually based....
Which might make the lecture a little shorter.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The teacher exercised his freedom of religion and can't be sued for doing so.
Of course, I suspect that many people would change their tune quickly if the teacher had been teaching in favor of religion instead of against it.
If I'm reading this right, the court's opinion seems to have been that this was a church-state violation, but that the teacher was immune to lawsuits for such. How does that work?
The science teachers should bash religion all the want. Send your kids to church to learn mythology; or allow the humanities teachers to discuss religions equally.
The constitution is against promotion of a religion -- NO pushing of religion. period. Keep religion out of government is the whole point. (remember, the king of England was heavily connected to religion...) Somebody making comments against any of the many idiocies of our primitive ancient (older than mid-evil) beliefs is not violating this at all! Heresy could be a crime if if it wasn't for the prohibition of religion in government. Heresy includes a lot of science, logic, philosophy etc.
Furthermore, my point is that government can bash all religion equally without promoting any single one of them; some could argue that the banning of religion is possible to a degree but I'm not going there (human sacrifices and many other religious practices are illegal and its constitutional.) Non-religion is not a religion. So you are not promoting 1 religion over the others if you are "attacking" them all fairly.
"FREE PRESS" but we tax them... That severely limits the press of today where the real news comes from papers who are going broke. Religions, they don't get taxed yet they get less empowerment in the constitution than the press does.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
So what is truth? Does an objective truth exist at all? How would we know it, assuming it even existed?
G'Kar: Well, if the book is holy and I am holy, then I must help you become closer to the thoughts of the universe. Put your face in the book. ...
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Because then you would be my cousin.
That and, by natural law, Eve was Adams sister.
Eve was created from Adam's rib. Doesn't that imply God just ripped out a rib, tore out the Pesky male Chromosome, cloned a twin sister for Adam, and patched him up before he could say "ouch!"?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
http://chadfarnan.com/
Further support of parent's comments, the above URL has a big link to "Advocates for Fait and Freedom" under the caption of "support chad by supporting."
I can't say I give enough of a fuck to trace the money trail, but if it's a legit non-profit, more info can be gleaned from irs.gov
TBH the majority couldn't even if given the chance, when little johnny failed his math exam cause he was drooling on the desk, then fuck him. This is part of the problem, we are so worried about every child that we often retard the normal ones to keep the stupid / worthless ones up to par.
Put it in front of such statements:
"If you ask me as a scientist, and as you know we are in a science class here, then....."
The teacher is acting on the behalf of a government that is prohibited from endorsing or forbidding religion of any kind.
I went to this high school and had this teacher for that class in 2001-2002. The guy (Dr. Corbett) repeatedly went off-topic to bash religion on a daily basis. It was a European History class, but for some reason he talked about Mormons in a negative light *all the time* (mormons have just about nothing to do with european history). He didn't just hint at what his views were--we knew full well that the guy was anti-religion, and very, very liberal. Everyone knew it. The article linked in the summary claims that he "had no way of knowing if what he was doing was unconstitutional." Uhhh.... how many cases have there been of teachers getting in trouble or fired for even mentioning creationism? (I'm not a creationist (in that sense), by the way).
I constantly felt extremely uncomfortable in his class (even though most of his anti-religious comments didn't apply to my own religion). Which is funny, since he always talked about how horrible his high school years were when the football team would pray, and how that made him feel depressed and discriminated against.
Advocating creationism in a science class (p) is advocating or discussing religion (q). The inverse is equally true, not advocating creationism in a science class (!p) is not advocating religion (!q). There is no other details needed, case should not have gone as far as it did based on those two sentences.
Creationism is not science. Xtians (evangelicals in particular) can suspend logic to say advocating creationism in a science class (p) is not advocating religion (!q). If p=q, then how can p=!q?
Right (or maybe wrong, I don't really give a fuck), but as a teacher it's his or her duty to impart knowledge, education and the ability to analyse. Slander does not help here in anyway, it makes the kids antagonistic against anything the teacher has to say whether it is right or wrong. The types of teachers in TFA are the worst kinds, and should be replaced. Unfortunately, there are too many of that kind.
Why don't you think back and tell me something, who did you learn more from, the teachers who imposed something upon you, or teachers who guided you in your thinking?
School is for facts and it's not long enough for the idea of creationism. Evolution is fact and something we see in our own bodies, through science and the world in everyday life. Parents should be explaining creationism if they want, but schools outside of college is for learning practical things that apply to real life in the real world. Creationism is just fairy tales, if we all grew up with our parents telling us jack was a real person who climbed the beanstalk we would believe it, just like today people believe in a book where a demon disguised as a snake tricks a woman into eating a forbidden apple. Kids need facts and real world based knowledge to prepare for the real world.
I think that's the most important fact. When you claim "creationism isn't religion, it's science" you lose all right to say teachers shouldn't criticize its scientific weaknesses in the classroom.
The teacher mentioned a god and the flying spaghetti monster, sure. As illustrations that the logic they were using was equally sound for both, deductively. He then went on to criticize creationism by claiming it's bad science. You'd think religious folk would take religion, a matter of faith, being criticized as 'bad science' as a badge of pride - anything that can be proved by science doesn't require faith, and a hallmark of religion is saying "you'll have to take it on faith."
This is simple. Teaching about science and logic is okay, teaching about religion is not. When science and logic contradict religion, teaching that they do, isn't a problem. The position isn't to disparage religion, it's to teach science and logic. That religion is disparaged by that automatically is only religion's fault.
What if a teacher had told his students the FACTS - which are that blacks are the least intelligent race on the planet. Would he be sued then? Or sacked, more like.
For telling the truth.
What are the chances of all the races evolving to have the same IQ? Zero.
I think people in these comments fail big time. The whole point of this is that creationism is trying very hard to be a scientific albeit theistic theory, but criticizing the science behind it gets you in court because it's considered religion. Following the logic here you'd think the debate should stop every time someone quotes scripture; makes as much sense as listening to a schizophrenic interpreting a Jackson Pollock.
"how God created everything but inexplicably can't be proven to exist in any sort of rigorous scientific study."
the real trick would be trying to prove the negative (without being OmniPresent).
And there is a lot of things that make somebody wonder how things could have "just happened" even at the range of a single cell and thats not getting into the various A-P must work or %critter% DIES kind of things.
and the real funny thing is that science by definition can not tell us anything about say the first 20 picoseconds of "Time" since that event is not repeatable so you have to answer by Faith with either
In The Beginning GOD
or
In The Beginning BANG
and btw i think that the teacher should not be able to be sued (or fired) unless it can be shown that he? had a practice of failing students for believing Creationism
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
And while liberals everywhere celebrate this victory against creationism, they will entirely miss the implication of this case: The government just said an entire class of its employees can violate people's First Amendment rights with impunity.
Liberty in your lifetime
Teacher Cannot Be Sued For Denying Evolution. Both are just theories. Both are impossible to prove. There may evidence for both. But are assertions.
Well, I'm glad I read the fine article now, at least I learned something.
FSM, he lives behind the moon! I had no idea!
And I learned that by reading the Christian Science Monitor!
don't be a spelling loser
Johny, probably the son of somebody in the hate group AFA, was upset because the teacher didn't agree with his mommy and daddy so tax payers had to throw a bunch of money away in courts to make Johny feel good? Are spoiled evangelical kids so important we have to pay for their tantrums?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
If the truth is in conflict with a religion - or rather, a quite heretical interpretation of said religion - telling the truth is no government act against the religion, sorry.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Yes, the teacher should not be actively evangelizing his/her religion
to a room full of students; that's not what they're paid to to (if you take
a position - any position which has no clinical facts - no objective point,
then it's a religion) and should be fired for not performing their duties.
Teachers are paid to teach, not preach. It's that simple - we've gone
too far from the 3 R's in our schools - we're not producing the critical
thinkers our nation needs. If a student isn't learning, then the teacher's
not teaching. A pretty simple concept - one we should adopt at a
national level.
We need to start thinking in terms of the student - questions like "what
did you learn in school today?" put all of the responsibility on the student,
and none of the responsibility on the paid teacher. It's a teacher's job
to build a teachable environment for the students to be taught and teach
those students in their care.
Why do the courts believe that teachers are exempt from compliance
with the law - I've seen other examples of this and it's very sad...
As a child, in a California public school, I refused to pray with the group morning prayer in my second grade class. I was made to stand at the front of the class to be ridiculed by the teacher and class at each prayer session.
I had already decided that religion was crap, at the age of four, after my mother (a Christian) and my father (a Jew) enrolled me in a Christian Sunday school. The Christian school staff told me my father and I were going to burn eternally in hell if we did not renounce that other religion. I went home upset, and my mother not only allowed me to no longer attend any religious indoctrination, for the rest of my childhood, but renounced the crap herself.
Religious indoctrination is child abuse. A different standard of law should apply than the case in the FA. The religious folks who seek to brainwash young children into believing in harmful myths should be tried under our existing child welfare laws, as the child abusers they are. They certainly shouldn't be allowed to teach.
This has not the slightest bit to do with the teacher's freedom of religion. He told the truth. Should telling the truth suddenly become unconstitutional when the truth hurts some religious feelings?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The problem is that a scientific theory can only be displaced by another scientific theory. Creationism has been demonstrated to make no testable predictions. Therefore, it's not a scientific proposition.
And after a theory has been proven correct as often and as firmly as evolution, it becomes more and more likely it is the correct proposition.
More tellingly, though, is the reason people propose creationism. It's almost invariably because of their religious belief. That's not a good reason to challenge the validity of evolution. In fact, it's the stupidest reason there is.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Then KOnrad created the Z1...
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
It was established in Katzmiller v Dover that Intelligent Design is nothing more than creationism in new packaging. This was concluded based on testimony by Behe himself, when he admitted that, if you assumed intelligent design were scientific, you'd have to conclude that astrology was also scientific.
There is no distinction between intelligent design and creationism. ID is an attempt by creationists to hide behind a facade of scientism.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I think you replied to the wrong post.
Why don't you think back and tell me something, who did you learn more from, the teachers who imposed something upon you, or teachers who guided you in your thinking?
Antagonistic teachers who made ridiculous comments and pissed me off actually made me critically think.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Uhm, no.
Pi is not 3. Putting a striped stick in front of a pregnant horse will not get you a zebra. There is no evidence of a worldwide flood, Noah's ark couldn't've been built as described and still float, and there's no way to get two of every species on a boat like that (let alone seven of every "clean" animal).
Bats aren't birds.
I could go on.
As for history:
There was no census under the conditions described in the New Testament, and no Roman census required people to return to the town in which they were born. There was no exodus of slaves from Egypt. There is no evidence for a 40-year sojourn in the desert. There is no historic evidence for Jesus. And so on. Many of the stories are taken from other cultures (such as the flood, which appears to be based on the tale of Gilgamesh).
The Bible is neither scientifically nor historically accurate. The morals it presents are generally abhorrent. (Stoning your child for disobedience? Very specific rules for slavery? Hardly a basis for a sound morality.)
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Teachers should not be giving their person opinions on religion either for or against it. Teachers shouldn't be calling religion nonsense and they shouldn't be preaching it to be true either. Stick to teaching your subjects, not giving students your personal beliefs.
Hey! I had a bag of pot. I turned my back for a second and it went missing. Anyone seen my pot? I'm getting pretty desper...
So what is truth? Does an objective truth exist at all? How would we know it, assuming it even existed?
Found it!
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
There's a reason there is an established method of punctuation and grammar. Your comment doesn't make any sense.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I don't think so. Are you not pushing the idea that this is a freedom of religion matter? Since when is talking about reality in a scientific manner a matter of freedom of religion?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The US's system of public education has a very high drop-out rate and produces far too many citizens who are indoctrinated with a single POV that precludes critical thinking and/or hate education.
In our long-term interest, as both individuals and citizens, we should abolish the public education system immediately. In an age of the Internet, we have much better alternatives.
Okay. So I believe in the existance of God. Yes - I'm a Christian.
I also believe in evolution by means of natural selection. The universe began around 13 billion years ago, and humans have evolved from much lower life forms into what we have today. I don't believe you need to use the existence of God to explain the origins of the universe. I also am not a fan of ID theories.
That doesn't mean God doesn't exist. I don't believe science can prove or disprove the existence of God. Not all phenomena in our world are scientifically provable/verifiable/quantifiable.
Is this not what science wants? To be free from any religious influences? Is it fair to ask the same thing of science from religion?
I know this is really simplifying things in a lot of ways, but can't these two be mutually exclusive?
Bottom line is that when she is on duty as a teacher and the meter is running for the taxpayers, she is acting on behalf of the government and as such is obliged to restrain herself accordingly.
As a tax-payer, I expect a science teacher whose salary I'm paying to call bullshit on fallacious reasoning and magical thinking when he sees it. The teacher in question didn't attack any specific religion, he attacked the specifically fallacious arguments used by religions to justify their beliefs, and according to the court, he did it without crossing any church/state dividing line at all. Here's my bottom line for you, in the form of a question: Religion has no special status in the US government, why do you think it should have special protection in a US school?
If I had mod points, you'd get them.
I have on my bookshelf the book:
Compendium Maleficarum by Francesco Maria Guazzo
http://www.amazon.com/Compendium-Maleficarum-Francesco-Maria-Guazzo/dp/048625738X
He deals with several kinds of witches and how to deal with them.
The original book was written in Latin, but nowadays you can find a translation
to other languages.
There are many people who believe that the landing on the Moon was a hoax,
and this seems to me similar to those who claim that Adam and Eve never existed.
BTW, the Fruit of Knowledge on the tree wasn't an apple as you can see in European art,
but a fig. Cultural apples came from China, and wild apple in Eurasia are not edible.
There is nothing in studying the universe that God provided us with (i.e. science). Nor is faith in God an end to knowledge. As far as science goes, how much of it do you take on faith? As an example, unless you can provide me with some witnesses to the Big Bang, you have to take it on faith that the scientists' theories are correct. There is nothing wrong with faith and all things begin with it (and in my case, end with it).
I would agree with you except that Islam is taught in many school districts in the US. Even going so far as having morning prayers. How can that be allowed in school and very few object, but having morning Christian prayers is not allowed.
I said that he should be allowed to espouse his religious beliefs. I think you replied to the wrong post because you apparently tried to refute a post which claimed that what he did should NOT be allowed.
Which of the hundreds, if not thousands, of religions do you teach?
Only yours, a selection ( Top Ten List, anyone?), or all of them?
Only religions practiced now, or all that we have heard of existing?
If you go with all of them, how much time do you allot for religion in the curriculum, compared to science, math, etc.? Do you teach them as all are valid, or favor certain one/s? Which one/s?
If you select one, who decides on which one[1]? Is this on a National, State level, County level, school district level? (Sounds a bit like 'herding bobcats in a burning barn' to me!)
'Freedom of religion' is probably a good thing, but some of us would also like 'freedom from religion'!
Hmmm? (I think I'm seeing your double standards here)
[1] I think you would be in direct, and obvious violation of the Constitution and Amendments by 'establishing' a religion.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
How dense are you to not get that he was not espousing any religious belief. He was just talking about bloody science. I agree with you that he was in the right, but what the fuck has taking pure simple scientific truth to do with religious speak??
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Mischaracterizations aside, one of these ideas is supported by multiple lines of evidence (the cosmic microwave background radiation, observable expansion of the universe, etc.) the other is supported by a 2000-year (give or take) idea.
And... "anti-Creationists"? Seriously?
HAND.
should have sued for civil rights violation and a hate crime of bashing religion. While the remarks about creationism are debate, the hate speech about religion is not.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
he was not espousing any religious belief
He was espousing an anti-religious belief.
He was just talking about bloody science
He was a history teacher.
European history, to be exact.
It's too bad that a teacher CAN be sued for saying anything against gays.
Can and will be fired if catolic.
Sad sad.
You can tell that because the government definitely doesn't hold prayer meetings, make pledges concerning God, have "In God We Trust" as its motto and print it on the money, and so on.
Oh wait, we were talking about the United States of America
Creationism is a completely unscientific belief, and yes the teacher should be fired for bringing known pseudoscience into a science classroom. Science is confusing enough with the constant churn of new ideas without introducing ones that water it down.
Now, if he or she wants to cover it in a more suitable subject like philosophy, then that's fine, but just because you can find a small number of nutters that believe it does not mean that it's a scientifically valid hypothesis.
This is also the reason why the burden of proof lies on the party making the positive claim in most cases. One can never prove that something doesn't exist conclusively. But, without any evidence at all to support the notion that God exists, and even less to support the belief in creationism, I think it's pretty safe to suggest that for all intents and purposes that it's not even close.
Haha...you nailed it. And for the record, I'm not pro- or anti- creationism. I believe in evidence. If we find hard evidence of creation, I'm cool with it.
This is how screwed up this country is. This teacher should be fired. There should be no imunity for any comments for or against this subject. Just teach the physical laws of nature. Leave the rest to competent clergy and family.
and the real funny thing is that science by definition can not tell us anything about say the first 20 picoseconds of "Time" since that event is not repeatable so you have to answer by Faith with either
In The Beginning GOD
or
In The Beginning BANG
a) Science (and history, and other disciplines) can tell us a lot about a lot of stuff that isn't repeatable - if the event left evidence. "Can't repeat it in the lab" is increasingly the desperate last defense of reality deniers.
b) We conclude the existence of the "BANG" on the basis of the evidence it left; the same cannot be said for "GOD", or any other gods.
c) Even if "BANG" and "GOD" were both just arbitrary assumptions, "GOD" would be a wilder assumption than "BANG", because he/she/it/they have to be able to create the universe *and* do all the other stuff attributed to them. Or, if all he/she/it/they did was create the universe, he/she/it/they become useless middlepersons that contribute nothing toward an explanation.
See also, Ockham's Razor.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I would agree with you except that Islam is taught in many school districts in the US. Even going so far as having morning prayers. How can that be allowed in school and very few object, but having morning Christian prayers is not allowed.
Are these private (self-financed) schools or public (state-financed) schools? There is nothing wrong with having Catholic or Buddhist or Islamic or [insert other crazy dogma here] schools which are funded by their own private sources such as endowments or fees for tuition. If you know of a school in the US which is state-funded and promulgates a particular religion in its lessons, then please let us know - name and shame.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
You were in such a hurry to type that, you missed the replies with the (rather obvious?) counter that the bottleneck you assert is derived from what could be considered imperfections in the DNA, and people who believe in a perfect God are quite free to believe such a perfect God could have created Adam with perfect DNA. And could have pulled the "rib" out of Adam's DNA to create Eve with in such a way that both DNA remained, sexual differentiation aside, perfect.
It's an old argument, really, dating well before the philosophers who incorporated several versions of it (somewhat incorrectly) into the Catholic philosophies. Thousands of years old.The use of DNA in the argument just makes it sound new.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Lessee.
I hear that, in France, many parents put wine on the dinner table for their children at a very early age.
Good or bad?
Sexual relations have consequences other than pregnancy. In ideal world where sex never resulted in pregnancy without some sort of post-sex opt-in, and without the spread of diseases, and without emotional confusion, maybe you could argue what you appear to be arguing, but I don't think so. Siblings are too close emotionally to start with.
Besides, if you remove the emotionally confusing effects of sex, what is left to make it interesting?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Teach all religions in one class, throw in a bit of philosophy (particularly epistemology),and ethics.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
After RTFS, I get the impression that the teacher said something like "Creationism is false. Creationism is garbage."
After RTFA, I realize the teacher basically said "creationists rarely use scientific arguments to support their belief."
Long live exaggerated and misleading Slashdot summaries.
I believe in evidence. If we find hard evidence of creation, I'm cool with it.
Science adjusts its beliefs based on whats observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
Ill spin on a fucking dime
Ill be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
Its a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory in it!
And while its memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo its had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works
And when Ive recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve "Fancy That" on the side of my cock.
Tim Minchin, Storm
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
When you start out making a fundamental mistake, the conclusions that stem from that mistake are frequently nonsense, and often cause a lot of trouble. The fundamental mistake here is schools funded and controlled by government, with the result that education in the USA is a rolling disaster. All this hoohah about religion in schools is a non-issue if all schools are private.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The teacher undoubtedly stepped in it, but consider this: It is the teacher's responsibility to teach the truth and not allow blatant falsehoods to pass unchallenged. Creationism and nearly all religious teachings are obvious lies; it is a sad and shameful reality that most people don't see religion for what it is: a vicious fraud.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Uh, he successfully fostered critical thinking in a HS class. ...Lorenzo
In this day, that's to be commended.
I am an agnostic and from my viewpoint atheism is a religion. I can explain that in the following way: There are hypotheses which can observe and test, and the results of the observations and tests must be independent of the observer. If we make theories grouping such observations then we call it science.
There are hypotheses, which are fundamentally beyond our capability to observe things, not due to a limit in our current capabilities. Among these i would classify theories about the origin and the purpose of the universe, or the laws of nature. Whether it was created (and why) or accidentally exists is something we cant answer.
Everybody who claims to have an answer to the latter call of question is religious. Everybody who claims that his answer to the latter class of question implies some answer for observations deviating from the observations made, is a fundamentalist. Everybody who relies on "you cant know for sure" to push a question into the second class is an idiot. All questions where religion contradicted new theories by this argument did not go well for religion. (The Earth is *not* the center of the universe. Cats are not from the devil and they dont bring the pest. etc.
It wasn't a science classroom.
This wasn't really about religion, per se. This was about creationism trying to pass itself off as science. From a scientific point of view, creationism / intelligent design are nonsense.
And there is a lot of things that make somebody wonder how things could have "just happened" even at the range of a single cell and thats not getting into the various A-P must work or %critter% DIES kind of things.
Does not knowing how "x" thing 'just happened' make a bronze age magical book correct? This is the thing that christians ignore when attacking evolution. Disproving evolution wouldn't make the bible right.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
No, the bottleneck isn't derived from genetic imperfections. If all humans and other land species descended from a handful of individuals 4 500 years ago, there wouldn't be time to create the genetic diversity we see in them today. If Noah and every creature he carried on the ark were gifted with "perfect DNA", it would only explain why they didn't die from inbreeding. It doesn't explain the genetic diversity we have today.
Chicago Public School, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/580789/posts
MA Public School, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-I9Qp3d4Y
San Diego Public School, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p01s03-ussc.html
General, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-25-muslim-special-treatment-from-schools_N.htm
For every AP High School teacher at risk of being accused of being hostile to religion, there are hundreds of elementary school teachers actively pushing their own religion on all of their students regardless of that student's own religion or that of their family, holding it up as the one true religion, and inviting the class to ridicule and torment any student whose religious beliefs diverge from the teachers' own majority religion.
Perhaps in ruling against Corbett, the courts would "put the fear of god" in these can't-tell-the-difference-between-public-school-and-sunday-school teachers. If so, I could live with making the AP High School teachers guard their words a bit more carefully while they try to make their slacker students think.
ID is more specific than the simply the notion of a guiding intelligence, just as Christianity is more specific than just a belief in the Christ Jesus. Can you quote me a book on ID that doesn't assume the age of life on Earth to be recent enough to account for the chronologies and genealogies included in the Genesis and Exodus?
Because the fossil record very very very strongly suggests that those timescales are impossible. Australopithicus Afarensis living for between 5 and 20 times the existence of humans, and there was a gap of between 15 and 60 times the existence of homo sapiens between homo sapiens and australopithicus afarensis. That's many many more times what the ID books generally accept to be the age of life on Earth...
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Not true: a lot of good science was historically done by religious scholars. The heavens were mapped by astrologers, the arabs protected European academic knowledge in Spain during the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church did more than anyone to advance structural engineering in the Middle Ages, and founded the universities with the express goal of working out the mechanics of God's creation.
Some people are hostile to advancement. It just so happens that sometimes matters of culture and self-identity are imposed onto religion. (See also the veil -- accepted by most Muslim scholars as "not a religious thing", but proclaimed as an important part of the religion by people who just happen to be from areas where it is traditionally worn.)
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
basically you have two possible ways X could have happened
1 an absurdly long chain of random events (99.9999999% of the time will cause X to die) managed to happen exactly correct
2 Somebody designed X to work the way it does
Even if you don't believe the Judea-Christian Bible then it figures that Somebodies Bible is correct in case 2
oh btw rather large sections of said "bronze age magic book" have been found out to be actual historical FACT
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
In The Beginning GOD or In The Beginning BANG
and btw i think that the teacher should not be able to be sued (or fired) unless it can be shown that he? had a practice of failing students for believing Creationism
I read that the spontaneous creation of the Universe from nothingness was extremely unlikely. However, it only had to happen once.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Okay, if you insist, both (or all) those arguments go back to (and predate) the Greek philosophers.
So do the refutations. For example, a perfect God should have no problem inducing genetic diversity.
In one argument, we are not barred from assuming that a perfect God could use/allow a few well-placed "stray" gamma rays to induce any particular variation such a God might deem/recognize to be necessary. Genetic drift could be helped along in such a way. And this would be the case, whether from Adam and Eve, or from Noah and his wife at the time he would have entered the ark with his three sons and their wives.
Trying to prove religion wrong is an uphill battle, and not really worth the effort put into it. I would prefer to waste/spend time discussing the use of computers in elections or the efficacy of certificate authorities or the relative danger of breader reactors versus non-breader reactors. Or, if you insist on talking about metaphysics, discussing ways to discern between social mores and personal, for example.
Speaking of which, the court was right in this case, to allow the stupid teacher to say stupid things. Saying stupid things is one of the rights that must be protected in a free society. Whether the offended believer was right in suing or not, I can't guess. There are many ways to defend one's faith, but I tend to think that doing so in the courtroom is not very productive. Tends to produce more wind than understanding. But there could be circumstances justifying the suit, some of which may not actually even involve the teacher in question or the local BOE's policies.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
No, that was a short way of saying that we have not eliminated any of the problems inherent in random sex, much though our libidios would induce us to believe otherwise.
Here is a moderately more long-winded version:
Parents should not give children wine, even in France, because wine can cause health problems, and at the same time, it tends to be habit forming. Neither should siblings. Children should have the right to choose their own poisons, and the right to postpone the choice until they are both physically and emotionally mature enough to make the decisions responsibly. That includes both the abstract responsibility of choice and and the physiological and emotional capability of changing their minds.
Sexual relations have similar issues. Condoms still slip. No matter what prophylactic you use, there is a finite, and actually significant, probability of both pregnancy and infection, and STDs are still difficult and costly to treat (without subsidies) and generally debilitating. There absolutely are health issues, and no amount of hiding from those issues will make those problems go away.
And even if those problems could be eliminated, there is still the issue of induced habits. There is also the right to choose whether one wants to be stimulated in a certain way or not, and by whom. And when. And if it is a brother or sister or parent or child asking, begging, threatening, pouting, etc., there is a lot more implicit pressure that goes way beyond mere social pressures.
Figuring out when the partner is okay with it is hard enough without sibling or parent/child relationships getting mixed into things. Those conflicts are at once the primary reason the social institution of marriage tends to occur in all societies, and the primary reason for some members of society wanting to do away with the social institution. But getting out of a bad sibling relationship when incest is involved tends to be even harder than getting out of a bad marriage when abuse is involved.
That's why incest is almost impossible to untangle from abuse.
So there are still reasons siblings might or might not want to have sexual relations with each other. Or might not know whether they do or don't. And it's the might-not-know part, along with the how-do-I-know-she-or-he-is-really-okay-with-this part that makes it wrong. Even if the other problems could be solved, which they are not.
And you have posted anonymous, so I can only assume you will never read this response, so why do I bother?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
A victory for sanity I'd say.
Come 8 months, Rick Perry will be the Porn Queen o' there GOP ... serves 'em right I'd say.
++//--
Anyone in the U.S.A. given our justice system cannot be sued for denying existance of existance.
: )
Sadly such is not the case in more than 99% of countries across the Earth.
It is still no wonder that the U.S.A. still has such as high rate of illigial immigrants desprate to excape the 99% of the other countries on Earth.
A no brainer.
++//--
Couldn't help smiling when i saw there were 666 comments...I'm sorry i ruined it for everyone now :(
Okay, if you insist, both (or all) those arguments go back to (and predate) the Greek philosophers.
Yeah. 'Cause as everyone knows, the Greek philosophers and their predecessors were very exercised over the topic of genetic diversity.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Too bad about the bit where they say Pi is three though eh.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You forgot: In the 'beginning' preceding conditions.
Maybe this is too obvious.
-- thinkyhead software and media
One point of order:
Atheism ultimately is the argument that "I haven't heard a sound argument for a God from anyone so I maintain the default position of nothing on the subject."
That's agnosticism. Atheism is the belief that it is impossible to ever construct a sound argument for a God.
Its sad that the internet is full of hateful, aggressive people always attacking Intelligent Design. And also its PATHETIC that a teacher has to resort to emotional arguments to fight for his personal beliefs instead of explaining to Kids the true nature of science.
So do the refutations. For example, a perfect God should have no problem inducing genetic diversity.
Then the whole discussion has been pointless, since everything can be explained away by simply saying "A perfect God should have no trouble making it appear so and so." Why go to the trouble of finding scientific arguments for creationism, when you already have a catch-all explanation for everything?
You've heard of the broad brush?
People can believe that the operation of the principle of evolution is evidence of intelligence in the design without buying the whole bag that some group of so-called Creationists is selling. (Even if such a fine distinction offends some atheists and agnosticists who assert that selection principles must not be seen as evidence of intelligence.)
I think the judge may have been right in dismissing the case. Faith is generally strengthened by a bit of contact with opposing viewpoints.
On the other hand, someone from the BOE needs to take the teacher aside and point out that a broad brush of crudely constructed cynicism probably does not teach what he thinks he should be teaching.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Why do you take the trouble to come back to a thread no one else will ever see and defend incest?
(Why do I bother to respnd to your half-thought-through specious reasoning?)
Are you so sure wine is no worse than water? I drink two liters of water a day on average, and, for my body, that seems to be about right. Would you advise your child, were he over 180 cm and 80 kg, to drink two liters of wine a day? You can argue that wine is not completely evil, but saying you can die from too much water is missing the point.
Although, if you live in an area where clean drinking water is hard to get, that's a slightly separate issue. But I'd still say it would be better to be working on getting clean drinking water than to just say let's give the children wine to drink. Wine is no more a substitute for water than unfermented fruit juices.
Prophylaxis is not just about pregnancy. Sure, people don't get pregnant just from oral or anal sex. But STDs can definitely be transmitted by either oral or anal sex. And people lose their judgment in the heat of arousal. Don't say it doesn't happen. All too often it doesn't stop with anal sex, and the women ends up with both a pregnancy and a life-threatening illness.
And prophyactics do fail. Asking how many people get pregnant from oral or anal is, again, missing (deliberately?) the point.
Asking how you can get STDs from people who don't have them in this context is just begging for trouble, not to mention begging huge questions and apparently trying to hide from reality. If you defend incest, how to propose to prevent promiscuity? Are we talking about forcibly keeping one's sibling or child away from all other people he or she may have interest in? Do I have to ask whether that is not also abuse?
Marriage has its share of problems, as I said before, as you choose to ignore. Doing away with marriage as a social institution always causes more problems than it solves. (Chattelry is a separate issue.)
There are fantasy writers who write about a world in which no one has STDs and in which the reproductive systems can be turned off at will to allow sex completely without consequences. I have to wonder why. There are other ways to get high, even without stimulating substances. And there are ways to help each other feel good about ourselves, about each other, and about life, without trying to make each other be happy.
But, anyway, that fantasy world is definitely not this world, and I don't see any of the suggestions about how to get there from here working.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
So do the refutations. For example, a perfect God should have no problem inducing genetic diversity.
Then the whole discussion has been pointless, since everything can be explained away by simply saying "A perfect God should have no trouble making it appear so and so." Why go to the trouble of finding scientific arguments for creationism, when you already have a catch-all explanation for everything?
What's funny is that these people will eagerly embrace the idea that God is pulling a prank on everyone by faking the evidence about the nature of the universe, but they won't consider for a second that the same God might be pulling a prank on *them* with the text of their holy book.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Does this mean that you would support a teacher with a belief in creationism teaching his opinion in a public school?
I have my doubts.
In a religion class, sure. In a science class, I would expect that science be taught, along with the conflicts of different scientific theories. However, a science class is not the place for science vs non-science theories, which is why "teach the controversy" is bullshit.
Unfortunately, this all happened during history class, and this particular professor is known for being a dick in this topic.
My (missed) point was a commentary on how the title of the response was "Nice to know that it is lawful to have an opinion" though we all know opinions frequently are not grounded in fact. A better title would have been "Nice to know that science class is still based on facts."